


Fledglings, or: Everything's Better With Penguins

by Anonymous



Category: Protectors of the Plot Continuum
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, No beta we die like Makes-Things didn't, PPC Mission, Special Operations Division (PPC), Sporking - Freeform, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The Protectors of the Plot Continuum’s Special Operations Division deals with the most unusual mission profiles, the ones for which you could essentially throw the standard operating procedures into Mount Doom. Sometimes that meant improvising a rescue mission, sometimes that meant asking DoSAT for a fighter jet, sometimes that meant hacking a pony-faced God in order to prevent the destruction of the multiverse.And sometimes, it meant going back into the PPC’s darkest history and assassinating agents.
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Protectors of the Plot Continuum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4211760) by Acacia [archived by [HASA_Archivist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist)]. 



> With sincere apologies to the PPC for writing this fanfiction of them without permission. I started writing this for fun, and got a bit carried away — You probably know who I am.

Nearly everything was quiet in Response Center 8.

Typically in HQ, that sentence would imply that what _wasn’t_ quiet was the console, [BEEEEEP]ing at what would probably be a particularly annoying moment to the Agents. That was, however, much less likely in this case: the console had, a few days earlier, somehow portalled _itself_ to WAN knows where, leaving behind a hole in the wall filled with loose cables and exposed sockets. That incident had, of course, swiftly been reported to DoSAT: the support ticket, titled “where did my emails go????”, had been sitting at the bottom of the priority queue for a while now.

In the meantime, the RC’s occupants were enjoying some peace and quiet, only perturbed by the cause of that “nearly”: A laptop plugged into the console’s network cables, fans whirring at full speed; and Agent Mallory E. Belford, Department of Floaters, Special Operations Division, occasionally typing in shell commands.

Mallory’s partner, Anis, didn’t bother to look up from the _Abridged History of the PPC, Third Edition_ they were reading on the couch. “Mal, don’t you think that sort of stuff will get us in trouble?”

“I don’t see what’s _bad_ about this,” the woman replied. “All I’m doing is asking the right questions.” Some more typing. “I’ll tell DoSAT about the vulnerabilities _eventually_ , but for now— Oooh, well _that’s_ spicy. You’ve heard of the DIO?”

That was enough to make Anis lift their eyes away from the book. “The secret police that _totally doesn’t exist anymore, promise?_ ”

“Yeah, well, turns out they _actually_ no longer exist— haven’t for over a decade. But their _files_ still do! Looks like they really hated this one guy, never quite could—”

She paused, for a disturbingly long time. Then she spoke again, her tone much more serious. “Anis. You’re gonna wanna take a look at this.”

Her partner hadn’t waited for that request: they were already peering over Mallory’s shoulder. “Tawaki?”, they perplexedly asked. “The Time Lord guy?”

“Look at the last update. It literally _just_ popped up. I’ve got that LJ page in another tab there.”

“… And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Brace yourself for an _absolute shocker:_ Tawaki Penguin, the _were-penguin Borg Time Lord guy_ , is from a PPC badfic. And apparently, _someone_ wants us to do _something_ about it.”

* * *

Some hasty preparations and a hack of the Remote Activator later, the agents found themselves in a familiar pre-fic void, the voice of the Words resonating into the emptiness.

**Thanks to Jay for beta-reading this.**

**I do not own the PPC(which belongs to Jay and Acacia), nor do I own "Entangled"(which belongs to leezh).**

This perplexed Mal. “Belongs to…? Well _tha—_ ” Before she could finish, the agents were swept off into a characteristically generic HQ corridor. “Ow. Can’t I even have _time_ for an existential crisis?”

“Maybe once we’re done”, Anis quipped. “Though the implication that you need a don’t-sue-me disclaimer for the— Look at the Words.”

**The official was a sunflower. A _telepathic_ sunflower. A telepathic sunflower with a greater knowledge of physics than Tawaki’s physicist father. The Sunflower Official(SO), they called it. Well, he’d known weirdness since that werepenguin bit him in ’95. Since then, he turned into a rockhopper penguin at every full moon. And he knew from What-Was-Her-Name’s briefing that this place was REALLY weird.**

“Oh wow, yeah. _First paragraph._ Great start for—” Mal realized she was standing just a few feet away from the two characters, and that the Sunflower Official, for all that he lacked eyes, gave off the distinct impression that he was glaring at her. He was, however, quickly distracted by the course of the narrative, pointing a frond away from the agents and directing Tawaki _**That way**_.

Quite unfortunately, he then turned back. _Who are you and why am I not in my off_ —

The agents found themselves at the door of RC 4096, inside which Tawaki was apparently meeting his partner. Mal cautiously checked the Words, in order not to be interrupted yet again. “Okay, looks like we have some time for finishing sentences. What’s _going on here?_ Did we accidentally portal into the first draft?”

Anis was still staring blankly into the wall, reading the Words of the fic. “Can we charge for random Latin?”

“Wha—” She checked. “What the _hell?_ Okay, I dunno about the Latin, but the other guy just dropped a whole _paragraph_ of exposition. With _parentheses._ ”

Her partner shrugged. “I think we _literally_ don’t have time to unpack all of that. Especially the slash and God bits.”

“Okay, the literal flames make me think we can charge for lolrandom, at l—” a **[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]** , and a short scream from Mal. Anis was unfazed. “Huh, exactly as annoying as when it’s ours. Can we sit that mission out? I don’t know about the continuum, and we can still read the Words.”

The woman quickly regained her composure. “Fine by me. Think we’ve got time for Rudi’s?”

“Let’s check something first.”

* * *

It turned out RC 8 was unoccupied at that time — January 2006, according to the console’s calendar. “Looks like we’ve got a base of operations.”

“Are we really gonna need that?”, Mallory asked as she was putting her backpack next to one of the beds (seemingly the exact same as in their time). “With that fic’s pacing, I don’t think we’ll have much down time like this. Although at least, we can stash the gear we don’t need, and— okay, actually, that’s a great idea.”

The console binged, and a message popped onto the screen, which Anis read out to their partner. “ _Notice of temporary assignment: Welcome to Past RC 8, DF agents Future Mallory Eve Belford and Future Anis._ ”

Mal chuckled. “We’ve _got_ to save this for next time Personnel takes more than a week to clear a bonus.”

“Not going to work, and you know that. _’Note that the purchase of lottery tickets is strictly forbidden, and that Irn Bru is rationed by the General Store at two cans per future agent.’_ I think there’s a joke I’m not getting here.”

“Probably.” She paused to look at the Words, straining a bit to do so — her partner was usually the one to handle that. “Oh hey, they blew up their CADs. How 2006.”

“Yeah, nothing we could really have charged so far. Except the pacing.”

“It almost looks like an example mission report.”

“From DAVD.”

“Give ’em a break, they’ve gotta type the whole thing on typewriters!”

The agents laughed as, a universe away, their targets speedran an assassination.


	2. Chapter 2

The agents found out, the hard way, that RC 8’s console audio had been linked to RC 4096’s.

**[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! ARE YOU DONE YET? BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]**

Mallory leaped out of the bed she had been attempting to take a nap in, and turned the volume down. “Consoles can be expressive in their own way, but I’ve never heard one _talk._ ”

“They do that sometimes.” Anis, who had been reading on the desk’s chair, held up their _Abridged History_. “Apparently. No charge.”

“We should probably go into this one, I don’t think we’re getting paid to hang out in our RC.”

“We’re getting paid?”

Mal chortled. “I’ve been thinking of testing one of those pocket flamethrowers.” She pressed a button, and a portal opened. “We’re going right into the fic, looks like they’re arguing about disguises right now.”

Her partner stood up and picked up their gear pack. “Another count of random exposition, by the way— And they’re already in the fic.”

“Oh come _on_ , that’s what scene breaks are for!”

* * *

The pair found themselves on the grounds of what the fic’s Words described as a manor. The targets were in the agents’ line of sight, but too far away to hear well — they would have to look at the Words for now.

Anis was, of course, already reading them. “ **Downright bipolar**? I don’t get what’s making them think that.”

“Yeah, you’re just gonna dump that on us with no explanation, I guess?” Mal watched as the were-penguin pulled out his CAD and took a reading off Mrs. MacReady. “Hey, no explosions, at least.”

“Yet,” Anis replied, prompting a chorus of “Growth mindset!” from both agents, followed by a fist bump.

**The Agents followed MacReady and the Sue into the building** , and the SOD pair, being Agents as well, were dragged along by the narrative. They dashed into an adjacent room to avoid being seen by their targets. Mallory asked her partner, “You’ve got the See-Through Thingy?”

Anis pulled out a small square remote and pointed it at a wall, in which a transparent window opened. “Thingy activated.” The agents watched as the Agents took another CAD reading, and **Then the Mary Sue saw them. She saw two young men, around twelve or thirteen.**

“Paging the Repetitive Department of Repetition,” Anis said as they watched the targets hide into a corner. “I’ll notify the Repetitive Department of Repetition,” Mallory replied with a smirk, before the pair was **portalled upstairs** by the Words — thankfully in another room than the mission’s **agents**. “We _have_ to deal with this,” said an increasingly annoyed Anis.

“Check the C-CAD, it should prompt you for ‘Narrative decoupling’, then just press OK.” After some rummaging through their bag, Anis did just that, and breathed a sigh of relief.

The agents opened another See-Through window, and watched as their targets retrieved **Digory Krike** the mini-dragon. “Period comma,” Anis said. Mallory was confused for a moment, then checked the Words, and replied: “Oh yeah. You’re telling me this was _beta’d?_ **”**

The course of the mission progressed, and the agents watched as a target’s — Nick’s — CAD started to malfunction. “I’d bet they’re setting up a running gag with their CADs blowing up”, Mallory stated.

“No bet,” Anis replied. “But multiple counts of destroying PPC property. They’re not that fragile, and the fic is too generically mediocre for this.”

Their suspicions were soon — especially with the ridiculously fast pace of the Words — proven correct by a muffled explosion in the distance. By that point, the agents had given up on following the narrative, and decided to take a short break.

Mal was pacing around the room, ranting at no one in particular. “What’s with that _pace?_ Do these guys just never take a breather? We’re two chapters in and I’m already exhausted!”

Her partner was sitting cross-legged in a corner. “Mal, think like a writer, not an agent. You’ve got your plot outline, plot points A, B, C and so on. Then you’ve got to connect them with a narrative. Sometimes you get lazy. I get it.”

“Now isn’t the time for _steelmanning!_ At least get back to it later and leave room for your _readers_ to breathe!”

Anis stretched their arms. “Of course. I just don’t think that’s the worst part of this so far.”

“And _that_ would be…?”

“Everything’s just so _beige_. Easier to write, sure. Lot harder to read.”

Mal paused, and took a look at the Words. “It’s not _that_ bad right now, and I _do_ prefer my prose on the beige side, but I definitely see it.”

“Mhm.”

“Especially when you’ve gotta dump all the exposition into the dialogue to compensate.”

“Yeah. Time distortion, sit down.”

“Wha—”

**It was a number of days until the next scene(Tawaki added a time distortion charge to the list), so the Agents hung out in the library when it rained, and went birdwatching on the grounds when it didn't. And they also did things on the sly to annoy the Mary Sue as much as possible, and make her uncomfortable. Things like putting sewing needles in her shoes and burrs in her clothes.**

Mallory was thrown off her feet by the condensation of multiple days into a short paragraph, as the sky light repeatedly flashed through the window, before settling into a cloudy night. “Ow, what the _fuck?_ See what I meant?”

Anis was thoroughly unfazed. “Hmh. Can we charge for hypocritical charging?”

“ _Fuck yeah we can!_ ”

The next day (after another time distortion), the agents followed their targets through the pointedly undescribed manor. “I’m guessing _something’s_ about to happen,” Mallory said. “Is the Sue going into Narnia?”

Anis shook their head. “They’re assassinating her.” They promptly clarified after seeing the look on their partner’s face: “Looks like the Suethor gave up on the fic after Chapter One. No charge for premature assassination, at least not this time.”

“Thank uh, whoever’s in charge here for small mercies.” The targets grabbed the Sue and shoved her into a portal, leaving behind a very confused girl that the Words identified as Lucy Pevensie. The agents themselves portalled outside before she could notice them. Mal continued, “We’re not following them wherever they went, let’s just check the Words.”

Anis nodded. “Think Ye Olde Englishe is normal for this continuum?”

“For a World War 2 England Sue? Nnnnope. I guess it’s more lolrandom from Tawaki.”

“Been expecting that since the penguin thing— Wait. Isn’t he supposed to be a reformed Suethor?”

“Yeah?”

“From World One?”

“… I hope there’s a _great_ explanation coming up for the penguin thing.”

* * *

As the were-penguin and the ex(?)-bit were performing another rushed assassination and mission conclusion, the agents made their way back to their own RC. Mallory immediately flopped face down into her bed, and her subsequent words came out muffled through the pillow. “Welp, chapter two’s done. What’s left?”

Anis, who was plugging the RA and C-CAD into their chargers, took a moment to stare into the wall. “Thirty… One? Thirty-one missions and five interludes.”

“Yeah, fuck that.”

“Mhm. Time for a change of plan.”


	3. Chapter 3

The Protectors of the Plot Continuum’s Special Operations Division deals with the most unusual mission profiles, the ones for which you could essentially throw the standard operating procedures into Mount Doom. Sometimes that meant improvising a rescue mission, sometimes that meant asking DoSAT for a fighter jet, sometimes that meant hacking a pony-faced God in order to prevent the destruction of the multiverse.

And sometimes, it meant going back into the PPC’s darkest history and assassinating agents. So, Anis and Mallory figured they didn’t really need to strictly adhere to the standard mission plan.

“ _MAL!_ ” As short as Anis was, their shouting could pack a surprising amount of punch, and startled some of the other people on the generic anime beach. “ _HEY, MAL!_ ”

“ _What?_ ” Mallory stood up in the shallow water near the shore, a conspicuously tall pale figure in freshly-DORKSed-on snorkeling gear. Even without her glasses, she couldn’t miss her partner’s fluffed-up red hair, and the way they were waving with something shiny in their hand. It looked like they had already tanned quite a bit in the three or so hours the agents had been there.

“ _DID YOU ANTIMEME-CLOAK YOUR PHONE AGAIN?_ ”

What were they talking about? She didn’t have a… Oh for _WAN’s sake._ She took off her diving fins and dashed towards her partner at uncharacteristic speed. “We’ve got to portal back before we for—”

She noticed what Anis was holding up. _Oh._

“It was in the bag,” they said as they handed it to her. “You’re welcome.”

The agent quickly dispelled the cloaking effect, then went to dry herself with a towel she’d grabbed from the RC. As she was doing so, she asked: “Anything new with the fic?”

“Not much,” they deadpanned. “Changed the Words of a badfic to make it sound worse. Complained about spacetime distortion a bunch.”

“Heh.”

“Recruited a bit who knew about Sues for no meaningful reason. Nick got injured.”

“Nick?”

“The non-werepenguin guy. Tawaki’s got a new temporary partner, an ex-Sue. Two missions with her, Myst and an Animorphs trollfic. They blew up a bunch more CADs.” They read the Words again. “Oh, Nick’s back now.”

Mallory made an exaggerated blink. “… Well that’s a lot to take in. I _almost_ regret taking this break.”

“They’re doing the Duty,” Anis said with a shrug as they sat into a deckchair. “And I only noted one extra charge. Oh by the way,” they added as they attempted (and failed) to grab the mini-bottle of **Suebuprofin** that appeared out of thin air, “I’ve read up on the Narnia thing. It might explain the praying.”

Mal picked up the bottle, stashed it in the agents’ gear bag, and used the DORKS to change back into her black uniform. “Oh yeah, every time I’ve heard someone try and describe it to me, it just sounds like a Chick tract. Anything important coming up?”

“Hold on.” Reading _ahead_ into the Words took Anis a bit more effort, but not much. “Weird rant about His Dark Materials, new partner coming up—”

“ _Again?_ ”

“ _Again._ Oh. Ring up DoSAT. 2006 DoSAT.”

Mallory complied, fiddling with the phone for a minute before handing it to her partner, the number for the DoSAT hotline already dialed. Anis waited for someone to answer on the other side of the line, and spoke in an even more serious tone than usual.

“Listen carefully. In a few minutes, an agent by the name of Tawaki Penguin will deliver a fusion reactor. Instruct Makes-Things to pretend to accept the gift for inspection, and _destroy it immediately._ If he objects, and I suspect he will _not_ , tell him in these _exact words_ that it is an internal operations concern. Thank you for your cooperation.” They hung up and handed the phone back. “Well, that should do it.”

The woman gave her partner a quizzical head tilt. “What was that all about? Did you… Pretend to be DIO?”

“It’s close enough, and the guy probably didn’t understand the implication. Makes-Things might. By the way, Mal, could you check if we can do anything about that Nick, uh… Hold on, it has to be in the Words somewhere…”

“Duval.” Mal held up her phone, showing public Personnel records, before turning it back to read the screen. “Next known appearance in a report is… ‘January 2008: Agent Nicholas Duval was murdered by _Mirrorverse Tangara?_ ’ _Excuse me?_ ”

Anis slow-blinked, staring blankly into space. “No, uh, no recruitment or assassination, then. He’ll undie and integrate once we fix the canon. I think.”

“Fine by me. Anything else you wanna drop on me right now?”

“The new partner’s console plays **the “Fireplace Theme” bonus track from the Myst soundtrack CD** instead of beeping.”

“ _What?_ ”

* * *

**On Mission**

_(No, really)_

**Do Not Disturb**

_(Unless you’re a waiter/waitress)_

_(…waitperson???)_

Rudi’s pub was characteristically animated, and the agents found themselves right at home. Some things just never changed.

Anis was reading the _Abridged History_ , trying to figure out which notable events their targets could end up involved in. “Found anything about that Firebird Trilogy yet?”, they asked their partner.

“Only the first book.” Mallory was having some success browsing Wikipedia on her phone, which was thoroughly confused as to where and _when_ to connect to the internet. “Looks like Christian science fiction, which I didn’t even know was a _thing?_ You learn something new every day I guess.”

Anis smiled. “And we have quite a profile building up on the penguin.”

“That we do. Ah, here we go.” The waiter, a blond man in a strangely-fitting suit, had arrived with their order — an iced chocolate and two espressos. The agents thanked him, and Mal reached for the bag in order to find her wallet — hopefully whichever weird liminal space HQ was would allow the transaction to clear, otherwise she would have to hope they still had those gold coins—

The waiter smirked. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said before putting a can of Irn Bru on the table. As he started walking away, he added: “We’ll put everything on your tab, Agent Belford.”

The agents wordlessly stared at each other for a literal minute. The first to break the silence was Mallory.

“ _What the shit?_ ”

“Charge for injuring multiple flowers. Also, _what the shit?_ ”

* * *

“The _Assimilation Crisis?_ ” Mallory was shouting to be heard over the tritonal siren that the narrative didn’t bother to locate anywhere in particular. “ _It was all his fault?_ ”

Anis was focused on the course of the Words, their heart racing. Their legs were starting to shake, and their usual matter-of-fact tone was starting to crack. “Charge for causing a major Emergency. Charge for threatening the Multiverse. Charge for Assimilating multiple agents. Charge for murder of a PPC agent. We can’t go in there, we’d die. If we’re lucky.”

Their partner was visibly starting to panic. “So what the _fuck do we do?_ ”

“ _We wait!_ We portal forward to the end of the crisis. We hope this will all revert once we _destroy the Stu._ ” The S-word had been dropped, and the pair finally understood the full extent of what they needed to do. They would— they _had to—_ assassinate an infamous PPC agent.

They waited, wordlessly, until the klaxon stopped sounding. Anis got up, grabbed the Remote Activator, and opened a portal. “Grab the C-CAD,” they told their partner. “We do need to confirm it.”

The agents walked into the portal, and found themselves in a FicPsych ward. They watched as a woman visited the freshly-Borg’d Tawaki. “Who’s she?”, Mal asked.

“Tadkeeta. Wasn’t mentioned until the beginning of the Crisis. Read Penguin first.”

Mallory did just that, muting the C-CAD and pointing it at Tawaki.
    
    
    [Tawaki Penguin. Human Were-Penguin Borg. Gary Stu.]

Mal shook her head. “Welp, we can’t turn back now. Do we have to analyze Tadkeeta too?”

“I’m not—”

**They embraced, and Tadkeeta asked how Tawaki was doing.**

**“Recovering,” replied Tawaki as they pulled apart. “Thanks for coming to my aid, love.”**

They sighed. “Yes. Yes we do.”

Mal took another reading off the CAD, and looked at it for what felt like a bit too long. “… Replacement. So now we’ll have to rescue the _real_ Tadkeeta, too.”

The two of them could only watch as the scene proceeded further. The Stu and the replacement discussed the events of the Crisis, and eventually parted with a kiss after not!Tadkeeta received a phone call. They then portalled back into RC 8, and Anis was now visibly shaking.

“Two— Two deaths. Who knows how many assimilations. For— For _drama._ For _rule of cool._ To make the Stu look _cooler._ And no— And no one did— _anything._ ”

Mal was quite shaken as well, and only had the slightest idea of what to say. “Anis. _Anis. We’re_ doing something. We’ll kill him, and then everything’s gonna be fine and none of this will have happened to _them._ ”

Anis slowly turned to face her. “We’re doing it now. We’re _doing it now._ We’ve got the charges. We’ve got—”

[Bip. Bip. Bip.]

“Oh _now not’s the time, asshole_ —” But it wasn’t a message. Not the standard ICEP kind, anyway. A terminal had flashed onto the console. _hello_

Mallory’s voice had power in it. Not in the way she talked, but in the more literal sense of a tech witch addressing a machine without the constraints of an input device. “What in WAN’s true name are—” _not your god just a ghost and the one who sent you here in the first place now listen carefully_

The last three words had been stated out loud, in a flat monotone, by the console’s speakers. Both agents were now paying attention.

_you need to kill the were penguin borg time lord but you cannot kill the were penguin borg time lord until the were penguin borg time lord is a were penguin borg time lord understood_

The agents remained silent. _understood_

Mallory nodded. “Understood.”

_good now no more beach episodes you have lives to save and people to meet time for another change of plan_

Mal’s phone dinged, as another window popped onto the console — the LiveJournal entries that had started it all. _read the reports and then be in the right places at the right times no more no less entry points are highlighted and you will need this goodbye i hope i see you again_

As the terminal closed, a portal opened directly above one of the beds, dropping two devices onto it: a DoSAT Simulation Generator, and a Dalek gunstick. Mallory looked at them, then at her partner. “Anis?”

The redhead didn’t answer, just turned their head towards her. She continued.

“Ever start something and, halfway through, realize that you’re in much deeper than you’d ever expected and there’s absolutely no going back?”

They just nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

The agents had now read the logs — Mal on her phone and Anis on the RC 8 console — until the end of the chapter that was marked as the final portal entry point. Despite the redhead’s memory, they had to resort to taking notes for the charge list, which had grown several pages long. “I think that will be enough,” they said.

Witnessing the despicable acts of a PPC badfic through text, rather than firsthand, had at least helped the pair process them. Had they been forced to sit through _everything_ as it was happening before their eyes, there would have been nothing more than a failed mission and two agents marked as missing in action, presumed snapped. As it were, though, the two of them were back in the Serious Business Mode that heralded likely success for the trickiest SOD missions, and they had time to make actual plans.

“First, portal to RC 4096 with the SimGen during mission 14,” said Mallory — not a request as much as a confirmation, as she already had the Simulation Generator in hand. “We’re getting Nick.”

* * *

It turned out reality was quite a bit messier than the plans called for. Namely, Nicholas Duval’s wife Kamkenta was also present in the RC — and she was set to die much later in the fic. Furthermore, they had neglected to account for the fact that PPC agents were often armed, and always dangerous. The SOD pair found themselves held at the point of two swords. “You have ten seconds to explain what you’re doing here,” stated Nick.

Mallory was at a loss for words; Anis, quite thankfully, wasn’t. “Special Operations Division. We’re about to save your lives.”

“ _Explain._ ”

“Look at the Words. PPC badfic.”

He was definitely not convinced. “I’m definitely not convinced,” he said in a quite redundant manner, and went for a slash at Anis’s throat, only to be held back by Kamkenta. “Nick— Nick, they’re right!”

The agents breathed a sigh of relief. Nick’s wife had barely any speaking roles in the fic, and was probably not as affected by the Suefluence — she reacted like an Assassin. She continued: “What’s the plan?”

Mal found her words back. “We’re sending out clones,” she said as she held up the SimGen, mirror side facing the Assassins. “Nick’s about to get killed, but you die much later — we’ll portal “you”,” she said with a single-handed air quote, “over there and you’ll follow “Nick”—” air quotes again — “to DoSAT to fit the narrative. Try to be convincing, but in a beige way, as you might have noticed.” Kamkenta nodded gravely. “Nick, you can just stay here — you’re both free of the fic’s influence once… Fake Nick dies. I think.”

Despite the hesitation of these last two words, the Assassins complied. Mallory held the mirror in front of each of them, pressed a button, and a nigh-perfect copy of them appeared into existence. Kamkenta’s clone was immediately directed through a portal to her and Omicron’s TARDIS (“Yeah, everyone gets a TARDIS later in this fic, it’s _weird_ ”), and Nick’s was instructed to follow the real Kamkenta. “Keep a low profile around Tawaki and his friends,” Anis instructed the pointedly undescribed man. “You’re dead to them. Literally.”

As the strange agents and their futuristic device left the same way they had come in, another portal opened behind the Assassins.

* * *

“Makes-Things is next. Macrovirus epidemic, bring the gun.”

“Got it.” Mallory was slightly concerned that their pace would make the time distortion charges somewhat hypocritical— but it was no longer about technical issues. To save lives, you had to move fast.

The DoSAT workshop was heavily barricaded, but the hum of the macroviruses massed outside the blast doors increased every second. Makes-Things was talking on what appeared to be a cell phone. “In. If you want a CAD replaced, talk to whoever delivers you and Melpomene a TARDIS.” The agents stepped through the portal, and dashed towards him. Startled, he turned around and cried “Oh no! Get a phaser, agent Cameron—” Anis got to him first, and grabbed the phone out of his hands as he screamed. They dropped the phone on the ground, and crushed it with a foot. “Come with us if you want to live,” they said.

Makes-Things jumped back. “Why should I trust you? Who are—”

“DIO,” Anis lied.

“ _No you’re not!_ I know—”

“They’re with us,” said a voice next to them. The agents turned to look, and saw two figures, a woman and— the waiter from Rudi’s? “Mal, Anis, clone him. We’ll handle the rest.”

Mallory did not bother to ask the questions she knew her partner would, and immediately started the sim-generation process. As she did, Anis did indeed reply: “You’re DIO. We were supposed to—”

“Meet us later in the fic,” the waiter — Peter Piper, presumably — said. “We know, we’ll talk then, now _get out._ ” And so, the agents ran back through the portal as soon as the clone was ready, hearing a sickening crash behind them just as the way closed.

* * *

“Len.”

“What the _fuck_ are you?” The gunstick proved a welcome addition to the “negotiation”, as the agent was much less inclined to fight back when faced with the wrong end of an exterminator — and this time, he was alone in the FicPsych ward.

“You’re in a badfic. The author wants you to sell your soul to Big Brother, who’s apparently also Satan, and then die. We want you to not do that. This device will create a simulation of you to get caught in the narrative instead. Does that make sense?”

“... Wait, so I _don’t_ need to adjust my meds?”

* * *
    
    
    [Sunflower Official. Flower. 20% OOC and falling. Recommended action: wait for Suefluence to clear.]

“Oh. Nevermind, sorry sir, bye!”

_… I’d hoped agents would have gained some_ manners _in the future._

* * *

As brain-melting as it was, the Smut Carver’s “art” was honestly somewhat impressive. Mal even dared to think that the GAW kids back home would probably have called it “based”. And added some extra memetic _punch_ to it.

“You’re about to get murdered,” Anis stated matter-of-factly.

“Of course I am!”, Melba answered. “That’s the point!”

“... _Wha_ —”

Mal was smiling. “Oh yeah, martyr of the art and all that. You’ll live on _forever_ through this, am I right?”

The Carver was positively _beaming._ “ _Hell yeah!_ ”

Mal laughed, and gave her a fist bump. “Shine on, you crazy diamond,” she said as she dragged an extremely confused Anis back into the portal. Back in the RC, she said through a chuckle: “It was gonna happen anyway.”

* * *

“‘Aslan”,” Anis said — Mal was adding in the airquotes, as her partner’s hands were currently somewhat busy — “you are charged with being a character replacement, appearing as a literal Deus Ex Machina, and aiding and abetting a major PPC Sue. You don’t get last words.”

“What are—” a beam of energy lit up the lion’s skeleton, and he dropped dead. Mallory portalled the body above Narnia’s Great Eastern Ocean, and shouted into the portal: “Just in case this was an honest mistake, sorry, Mr. God, sir, I hope you’ll get it!”

Anis chuckled. “The real one’s OOC-resistant. But now we’re even on deicide.”

* * *

**Agents Nita Kerys and Peter Piper returned Tawaki and Dustin to their own time and neuralyzed them, telling them they had gotten lost in Mirkwood.**

**“Let's get back to the TARDIS,” said Tawaki.**

The DIO pair blinked repeatedly as the Suefluence wore off. Then they remembered, and they looked around — _truly_ looked, in a way that only people trained in avoiding antimemes (and SEP fields) could. The SOD agents, still wearing their sunglasses, were waiting nearby.

“And that’s why we couldn’t do anything about these two,” Nita told them. “You get too close, you’re caught into their narrative, there’s no way out.”

“This exact scene locked us in,” Peter added, “and we could never identify the author — despite knowing they had to be an agent, given their knowledge of the PPC. We needed outsiders.”

The girl concluded: “And that’s why you’re here! Probably. We’ve been watching you and your comms for a while, and we were suspicious at first, but your story tracks. Kill the Penguins, and we’ll be able to clean everything up!”

Anis nodded. Mallory had a few questions. “You know Tadkeeta’s a replacement, right? Will you rescue the original, or is that on us?”

Peter shook his head. “We have identified the real Tadkeeta. She’s a Nurse in FicPsych, and she has no idea most of this has been happening. She’s safe.”

“What about the kids? Tadkeeta — Tadkeeta _Penguin_ — is pregnant.”

“Acceptable losses—”

“No they’re bloomin’ _not!_ ”, Nita cried. “Stab her somewhere they won’t get hurt, we’ll rush the body into Medical. They didn’t do anything.” Peter pondered this for a moment, then nodded.

Anis started dialing coordinates into the RA. “We’ll kill them when Tawaki regenerates. Meet us there. Anything else?”

As Peter walked away to open their own portal out of sight, Nita replied.

“Don’t bother with the charges. They’re trained Assassins, kill first, theatrics later.”

Mal gave her an awkward approximation of a military salute, which she returned with a smile.

* * *

Past!RC 8 had been tidied up, and the agents’ gear was all stashed back in their bags. The pair stared at the wall that they were about to open the portal on. One way or another, all of this was about to end.

“We’re about to murder two PPC agents,” Mallory said to no one in particular, the knife in her hand shaking ever so slightly.

“We’re about to _assassinate_ two _Sues_ ,” Anis responded anyway, gunstick at low-ready and dialed-in RA in their left hand.

“It still feels _wrong._ ”

“So does what they did to the PPC. To the _multiverse._ ”

Mal nodded gravely. “Ready when you are.”

“Portal in three… Two… One…”

Both agents took a deep breath.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

**“Now,” said Tadkeeta, “I will transform myself into a Time Lady when the twins are weaned, unless I need to** —

A portal opened by the Agents’ side. Through it ran two people in PPC-style black clothes, a shorter… Human? With fiery red hair, and a taller blonde woman.

They had weapons.

Tadkeeta and her newly Regenerated husband tried to get up as fast as they possibly could. The redhead aimed their— No. No _no no **no**._

By the time the woman had closed the gap, knife in hand, Tawaki was already dead. She didn’t— she _couldn’t_ —

The blonde embedded her knife into her neck. She didn’t even feel any pain, just surprise.

_The DORKS. Time Lord disguise. She had to_ —

The other woman looked her in the eyes, with a pained look on her face. She spoke in a strangely deep voice— or was it her senses tricking her already? “The kids, Tadkeeta.” The— the twins. She couldn’t—

“They’ll be fine. I promise.”

She looked down, and saw her figure covered in glittery blood—

_Glitter._

“I’m sorry.”

* * *

The DIO agents got out of cover and dashed towards the pair. Mallory looked at them, with a strange look in her eyes. She was shaking.

“Medical! _Now!_ ”

Thankfully, Nita had the RA this time, and opened a portal directly under Tadkeeta’s body. Mal yelled through it at the extremely startled Nurse on the other side: “Dead Sue pregnant with twins! _Do something!_ ”

The portal closed.

Nita put her hand on Mallory’s shoulder as she started sobbing. “I’ve been there. It’s never easy the first time. And I hope for your sake that it _never_ will be.”

Peter was thoroughly unfazed. “Nita, help me throw that SUEDIS into the Sun. You two, _go!_ We’ll fix everything else!”

Mal’s head jolted to him. She abruptly lifted her knife, about to throw it—

And was promptly tackled by Anis into a newly opened portal.


	5. Epilogue

The Duty of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum often seemed to outsiders like an impossible task. It was naive to think that such a Sisyphean task carried out by no more than a few tens of thousands of barely trained agents could make any difference, in the long run.

But they could only try. And they had help, from the canon itself. The agents never had to set _everything_ back in place: once you righted enough wrongs, the universe would have the opportunity to reassert itself, and fill in the conspicuous blanks.

Mallory stared down the list of names on the memorial to the victims of the Macrovirus Epidemic, and subsequent Mary Sue Invasion. She was holding a flower bouquet. “You know… On some level, I’d thought… I’d hoped…”

“I know,” Anis said, holding up a new copy of the _Abridged History of the PPC, Third Edition_. “Fate is absolute.” They put a finger right underneath one of the names. “Nicholas Duval.”

“Fuck.”

“Mm.”

Mal crouched down, and put the flowers at the foot of the stele. She then searched through her pockets, and pulled out a folding knife. She opened it, exposing a blade covered in dried glitter, and put it down as well. “Did we even do the right thing?”

A voice came behind the two: “I’m gonna have to say yes.” They turned, and saw a pale man with pitch black hair, wearing a dark uniform that bore a DMS flash patch.

Mallory immediately recognized him. “How did—”

“Let’s just say I’ve had quite a few weird if ultimately forgettable dreams,” Len said with a smile. “And I know I wouldn’t be here if not for you two.”

* * *

The three agents talked on the way back to RC 8. Len answered a question from Anis: “Yeah, I knew a Tawaki in DMS. About as normal as you could get; he led some kinda book club my therapist was in, and then the two of them got married and retired the next year.”

The SOD pair looked at each other, and smiled. Mallory asked: “Anyone turned into a Time Lord back then? Before uh, recent events.”

“Oh, there were _rumors_ , for sure — there’s _always_ rumors. Maybe confused by the temporary TARDIS RCs during the quarantine, maybe someone actually went and did it.” He smirked. “Maybe whatever you guys rescued me from was _incredible._ ”

Anis chuckled — the stress of the mission was finally wearing off. “Oh, it _was_. In its own way.”

“That your RC? Looks like you’ve got a delivery.”

So they did — the “Where did my emails go?” trick seemingly didn’t work for too long. The door was open, and there were two technicians next to the empty handcart that had presumably carried the console: a DoSAT tech, and a Building Maintenance—

The two agents rushed for their sunglasses, but the woman waved her hands in an apologetic gesture. “Oh, no no no! I’m just a technician, why would I carry anything dangerous? I haven’t been in an action department for _over a decade!_ ”

Nita approached the agents, and went to shake Mallory’s hand, which she cautiously did — after putting on her sunglasses anyway. The technician pulled her in, and whispered: “Not that it’d have done you any good — DIO neuralyzers had a wavelength modulator. Goes right through your glasses at close range.”

The two pulled away from each other. Nita continued: “Now I’d legitimately _love_ to talk to you two, I’m sure there’s a lot on your mind right now, but I do have some more urgent matters to deal with. I’m on CanonChat if you wanna find me!”

And so she left, waving at the three agents. Mallory waved back. “Goodbye! I hope I see you again!”

* * *

“Mal?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a package on your desk.”

Given the recent events, the woman approached the small box with some caution. She carefully opened it, and found a cylindrical object wrapped in aluminum foil, and a note.

_You forgot it at Rudi’s, so I got you another one_

_It’s pre-Sugar Tax_

_I think that was the point_

A can of Irn Bru.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we are.
> 
> I wasn't really aiming for "Best writing ever", or, to be honest, even for "Better writing than the sporked fic". I just had a plot bunny stuck in my head, that wouldn't get out until I actually wrote the dang thing. I did try my best to make it an enjoyable read, but I don't really expect this to quite fit the standards of the modern PPC - they've really come a long way.  
> I will however clarify that the mood shifts throughout the mission are intentional - I tried to convey the feeling that, in-universe, the agents had to go in with no plan and very little preparation, and found themselves in way too deep by the time it mattered.
> 
> I might reuse these characters if I ever get permission; however I won't come back to edit this fic, and it's best considered non-canon in the broader continuity unless the community agrees that it has its place.
> 
> Tawaki's missions can be found here: https://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=tawaki_ppc&keyword=*&filter=all


End file.
